Where does education money go?

Only eleven states plus the District of Columbia (Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island) have higher average teacher's salaries than Illinois with $59,113. The national average for teacher's salaries is $56,383. Interestingly, many of those states are also on the list of poorly managed states which may go bankrupt. Almost everyone in the Quad Cities would agree that Iowa has better schools (Let's face it, Iowa has better almost everything!). In Iowa the average teacher salary is $51,528. Iowa also does not have as many layers of school bureaucracy as is found in Illinois. No wonder Iowa is able to provide better education at a lower cost. Scott County was also able to impose a 1 percent sales tax for school facility construction without suffering a loss of business revenue because their sales tax was lower to start with. Rock Island and Moline already have a higher sales tax than Scott County. Raising the sales tax in Rock Island County will only add to the advantaged enjoyed by Rock Island County. Let's work on making Rock Island County schools as cost-effective as those in Scott County.